a/n: thank you to the noragami discord, especially ina, for listening to me ramble about this fic for months :')
inspired by a week-long re-read of the noragami manga which got me thinking about the god's greatest secrets and duty and karma !
hope you enjoy
yato's shinki always have the tragic habit of quitting on him. and like a coward, he lets them go.
"that's just proper etiquette," kofuku says, nodding in approval at yato's apparent respectability. but every time yato has to face a slobbering ayakashi empty handed, every time he instinctively reaches to call for a name he doesn't have the right to say anymore —
yato wonders how long it will take for him to become forgotten.
kofuku shrugs. "you always manage to find someone else," she says, nonchalant. "even against all odds."
they call it a god's greatest secret, but yato has always thought of it more like a curse.
gods are beings that hold immense power in comparison to other forces of the natural and supernatural worlds. but there there is no creature that is entirely infallible, and even gods are not exempt from karmic duty.
"isn't it cruel?" he wonders out loud, one night, when daikoku is far out of earshot and it's only him and kofuku and the stars as witness.
kofuku slurps at her tea. "many things are cruel, yato-chan. you'll have to be a little more specific." she would know, wouldn't she?
he glances into the shadows of the house, but daikoku is still busy in the kitchen, the clatter of pots and pans echoing through the rooms. there are many things he wants to say. kofuku, as a goddess known mostly for the bad luck she carries around with her, for the despair and the destruction that follows her every step, has been the only godly being that could even begin to understand the depths of yato's fear. two gods of calamity, each one leaving a path of suffering in their own special ways.
but kofuku is, for all intents and purposes, a legitimate goddess. even if she, like yato, does not have a shrine humans worship at, her anchor to the world of the living is secured. the collective masses of humanity know of her. her influence lingers in the background of every person, every action. there can be no joy without despair, after all. no light without shadow. no wealth without poverty. as long as there are people, kofuku will live on.
as for yato: how could he even compare? forget the masses. after all, yatogami is born of the wish of a single man. technically speaking, he exists for Father, and no one else. following this thought, don't all the shinki yato contracts belong to Father too?
gods are supposed to be free agents, bowing their heads to none, not even the humans that breathe life into them. shinki, on the other hand, are bound by contracts and life-debts. the weight of a name bestowed onto a lost soul is meant to drown the flighty freedom human souls so often like to tease. what is there, then, to yato's name than a blood-rust sword and centuries of decadent reputation?
yato blinks slow and lazy, like a cat. he taps his fingers against the table's edge and thinks about the kinds of things he only dares to think about when he's drunk and depressed, neither of which he is right now. he wants to ask kofuku about the burden she bears as an ostracized goddess. he wants to complain about how unfair it is that he, a no-name god with no background and no future, feels so much for those who never love him back. he wants to grab the soul-memories of his past shinki, memories and visions that cling to his shoulders and press against the flesh of his neck in threat, and blast them into oblivion. he is so tired of hiding.
(this is the price you pay for power).
the unsaid words swelling into a crescendo in his throat escape with the next sigh.
"dunno," yato finally says. he thinks he does a very good job of swallowing everything he wants to say.
kofuku raises her eyebrows, but yato just yawns and slumps to the ground. "anyways, thanks for letting me crash."
there's the thud of heavy footsteps as daikoku slams open the porch door. "get out of here, freeloader," he snarls in the same breath that he says, "dinner's ready, and if you waste a single bite, i'll kill you."
it's true that yato hasn't ever been left empty-handed for long. he's always been able to find a spirit to name. and even if all else failed, he had hiiro—nora—to fall back on. just like this, he's jumped from month to month, year to year, decade to decade, stubbornly hanging onto existence by a spider's thread, each temporary shinki another link in the chain.
but yato hates naming shinki and he hates using nora. nora is simple enough. calling her name makes yato feel like he's just been dragged through mud. snakes and centipedes and leeches, burrowing under skin, remnants of the heavy sins of his past. nora is inextricably tied to Father, always and forever, and no matter how much yato wants to peel the name he gave to nora off of her skin he knows he will never have the courage to.
he thinks he hates naming new shinki even more.
"you don't get it," he complains to kofuku, drunk out of his mind, tears threatening to overflow. this time, he is drunk and depressed and his brain-to-mouth filter has already been drowned in sake. he thumps his fist weakly against her kotatsu and sobs. "you haven't named a shinki in centuries. you don't remember how much it hurts."
really, what kind of god cries over an aspect of existence so mundane and so expected? not even bishamonten, with all of her bleeding heart charity cases, has the peace of mind to—
to care so deeply.
kofuku simply pats him on the head, gently. she doesn't understand.
yukine is — yukine is ice-cold against his palm, heavy and familiar, and the slice of his blade against the rogue ayakashi is like a breath of fresh air that yato has been waiting to take for so, so long.
he would laugh from the sheer exhilaration of it all, if the play-by-play of yukine's life and death wasn't pounding incessant rivets into the back of his head. but yukine's blade is so sharp and so clean that it nearly cuts away at the afterimages lingering behind yato's eyes. when the moonlight reflects off the edge of the blade, yato nearly offers up a prayer.
yukine slips into existence a little like snowfall, gently, quietly. under the moonlight, he seems to glow. hiyori gasps, a little shocked and a little flustered, already leaning forward with the intention of fussing and pampering. but yato sees only the phantom bruises on yukine's frail, pale neck, the non-existent blood staining the stark-white of his yukata.
painted on his skin in invisible ink is a story that ends in nothing but tragedy. yato sees it, crystal clear: a child's love, a father's betrayal, a family broken by distance and forgetfulness. for a long moment, yato cannot breathe. around him is silence. above him is the half-remembered face of a man already too far gone. then, yato's view plummets into darkness. he is drowning in the folly of human hatred, the unimaginable depths of desolation.
but then, yukine sneezes, and yato snaps back to the present, out of breath. sweat slides down the back of his neck, unnoticed. he blinks, and yukine's skin is smooth and pale, as if glowing from the blessed water yato had splashed over his blade. his clothes are unstained, and even the boy's curious gaze, sweeping over hiyori, yato, and the shrine behind him, brims with childish energy.
when yukine startles at his touch, sniffs at the jersey he offers only to reject it, yato forces himself to push the memories down. jams it down his own throat. locks it underneath his ribcage, next to his unbeating, godly heart, where the stories of all his other shinki are kept. it is a safe, the combination only he knows, and the weight of this knowledge is heavy, heavy, heavy in the pit of his stomach.
shoved in the very back is a name that would grow cherry-blossom thorns in his throat if he ever let it out, hooked into the flesh of his throat, dragging red claw-marks down, down, down.
it is, after all, a god's greatest secret. no one warned him that he was supposed to care this much.
yukine grows, like most boys do, and like most boys he experiences the peaks and valleys of puberty.
a caveat — yukine is not a human boy, but a shinki boy, and one could argue that he really can't be considered a boy at all.
"you need to release him," old man tenjin advises. "you'll find another shinki. you always have." (unsaid: shinki, like weapons, like tools, can and should be replaced when needed.)
"it will hurt, and he may not even survive," kazuma warns. "perhaps it would be safest to let him go." (unsaid: a double-edged sword is no sword at all.)
but see, here's the thing: yato knows what it feels to be measured by your usefulness, to have you, your actions, and the outcomes of your choices placed side by side in some sort of sick cost-benefit analysis. only it is your life that hangs on the knife-edge of risk, and your judge is not just a judge but the jury and the executioner too.
in another life, yukine has already been thrown away. yato does not want to be yukine's judge, jury, or executioner. yato does not want to be the one to leave.
all yato wants is to be able to give yukine a chance.
in the end, yukine sobs away the last of his rot, and yato finally breathes again.
bishamon, for all her anger and her hatred and her faults, also suffers from the ailment of caring too much.
"g-get out," she slurs, jabbing an empty sake bottle into yato's bony chest. "i don't want to see your ugly face anymore."
"shut up," yato snarls, although he has to hiccup a few times before his tongue can work again. "you want me to leave before i finish this bottle, you, y-you—"
yato never gets to finish this thought, because he bursts into tears. maybe he's being a little melodramatic here, but alcohol always helps with the forgetting, afterwards.
"how do you do it?" yato manages to ask, half of him dancing drunken circles with ghosts of the past. "you have so many."
it speaks to their tragically similar selves that bishamon does not even have to clarify yato's question. she just inhales the sake fumes and says, sadly, "sometimes, i don't."
"do you see me as a father figure, yukine?" yato asks, voice grave. his eyes are stretched comically wide, pupils turned into cat slits. then, he grins, a total contradiction to the austerity he'd projected just moments before, and throws his arm over yukine's shoulders. pulls him in close, so that yukine's head knocks against yato's chest.
yukine scowls and viciously drives a sharp elbow into the fleshy part of yato's side. screeching, yato topples to the side, clutching his flank. he even brings out the crocodile tears.
"fuck off!" yukine yells, flushed red. "if anything, i see you as a bother figure, because you're always bothering me! "
to the side, hiyori is doing a spectacularly poor job of hiding her amusement. in fact, she's flat-out given up, and is instead howling in laughter as yukine picks up one of kofuku's lawn chairs.
"w-wait," yato gasps, but yukine shows no mercy and chucks the chair at him with all his blessed might.
yato mopes for the entire evening, but the way hiyori giggles every time she catches sight of his pitiful expression and the way yukine valiantly tries to pretend he's not smiling makes all the lingering pain worth it.
000
call me Father , the man who wished him into existence says. yato is not given a choice. after all, why should he question the words of the only thing he knows to be true?
aww, is this teenage rebellion? Father says. you should just give up. Father knows best, you know. yato is not given a choice. this is the way it has been for centuries.
after all, these are the ties that bind: family, duty, love. for yato, Father is the root of all these things. once upon a time, yato believed Father was the pinnacle of what these things could be.
but now?
well.
an interlude:
yato's first shinki, which is to say his first friend, which is to say the first person other than Father to be relevant in his life, is the only shinki that does not give him the burden of a secret.
"you will know what to do," Father says, setting the girl down in front of him.
with a steady hand, yato points. thy name is hiiro , thy vessel hi.
come, hiki.
and that is that — hiiro manifests as a knife in his tiny hands, with a blade that shifts like water but is sharp as ice. there is no rush of memories, no vision of death, no film of life. she settles into the crook of his newly born soul like she was always meant be there.
000
(an ode to sakura, or maybe i should call you tamamone, or maybe i deserve to call you nothing at all: )
sakura is everything hiiro isn't. she doesn't like the feeling of blood on her blade, she shudders at gore, and she abhors death. she gathers yato in her arms and her chest is warm against his body. when she smiles, it's of a different sort of happiness, something that yato learns is called sincerity and loving. it's nice. it's a nice feeling, to be wrapped in up sakura's joy, to know that someone cares.
sakura is everything hiiro isn't. thy name is sakura, thy vessel ou. come, ouki.
sakura gifts yato with a god's greatest secret. it is a beautiful thing, wrapped in the trust a shinki gives to her god. from the glowing strokes of her new name, she passes it to yato, and the shock of its weight causes him to stumble. for the first time, the soul he carries is not wholly his own anymore. yato does not yet understand the burden it is meant to be. it follows, then, that yato hadn't really understood what it meant to live, what it meant to die. what it meant to be a human, and then a spirit, and then a shinki bound to the word of a god.
sakura, sakura, sakura. a blessing. a curse. a reminder, carved into his ribcage for centuries to come.
this fault, he knows, is all his.
the duty a god has to his shinki: care for them. give it shelter and clothing, food and water. teach it to live as a regalia, how to use its god-given form to the fullest.
the duty a god has to his shinki: bear its sins in full, for human souls are always subject to temptation, no matter how blessed they are. gods can never sin, but the weight of a bond is a contract of burden, and only the gods are strong enough (infallible enough) to take it all upon themselves.
the duty a god has to his shinki: protect it from the past, for once you have crossed the threshold of death you have no place in the world of the living. gods, as beings separate from the human cycle of life, death, and forgetting, but born from such human necessities, are the perfect gatekeepers.
000
yato's guide to name: yuki, vessel: sekki , otherwise called yukine:
one—love him, but in careful moderation, like you do for all your shinki. this way, when he leaves, it will not hurt.
yukine is young when he unfurls under yato's steady hands. yato had said yukine was a rare sight, and he wasn't lying. a pure soul, so young, so clean, yet brimming with a vitality rarely seen in even the most blessed of hafuri. even if sekki's blade is a little blunt, a little rough, yato knows there is strength curled within.
or maybe, he tries his best to convince himself that there is such a thing.
in the meantime, yato will wait. he doesn't want a hafuri, not particularly. he thinks he won't even mind if yukine turns out to be completely mediocre as far as weapon shinki go. as long as yukine stays, it will be enough.
two—love him, but this time, wholeheartedly. loyalty is not a battle won alone, and adversity is the greatest challenger of them all.
blight is something that all gods experience sooner or later. it's just that most of the time, even a prickle of temptation is enough for the shinki to be kicked to the curb.
yato doesn't have this luxury.
the first time yato is blighted by yukine, he is not surprised at all. frankly, this is the predictable result of a soul adjusting to the afterlife, of a human reconciling with the painful isolation of life and death, when all he knew before was how to live. now, he has to learn how to exist in death. at first, yato entertained the thought that yukine would recover by himself as his soul fought to find its balance. but it happens again, and again, until the pain becomes so unbearable that every time yato closes his eyes he sees white behind his eyelids.
every twinge of loneliness yukine entertains is a burn mark on yato's skin, every morsel of anger a blade-scar, every hiss of jealousy a frost-bite. when yato brings yukine through the ins and outs of a normal job, he keeps tabs on the ebb and flow of yukine's rage. surprisingly, yukine manages to keep his face fairly blank, always standing aloof and unconcerned, but judging from the way yato's own skin feels like it's about to peel off, yukine must be about to explode.
when yukine moves to stay behind in the classroom, yato does not ask him to leave. the job hasn't been completed yet, after all, and yato thinks it might be easier to let yukine go, for now. yukine is in the middle of a spiraling nose-dive, and nothing yato says or does will lessen the boy's pain. rather than slap band-aids on the fault lines splintering through yukine's soul, it will be easier—and more effective in the long run—to let him fall and pick up the pieces afterwards.
still, yato commits every flare of pain to memory. underneath every one is a cry for help, but this is not something yato can give, not in the way yukine craves, no matter how much yato wants to soothe yukine's fears.
yato tells hiyori, gods can do no wrong . he says, eventually, yukine will meet his due punishment, a god's judgement, and he means every word of it . he is, of course, referring to the purification ritual, but the fear that skitters over hiyori's face, an expression he rarely sees on her, especially directed at him, almost makes him want to clarify his meaning. still, in the end, he stay silent. this will become a lesson for yukine and hiyori both, it seems.
(the heart of the matter is this: this blight is also yato's burden to bear. the duty a shinki has to its god is devotion, but loyalty is a two way street, and the strongest bonds are the ones where mutual protection is assured.
before anything else, yato needs to build a relationship of trust between him and yukine. if he abandons him now, there will be no coming back from this betrayal.)
three—love him, patiently. he will return it tenfold.
yato isn't even thinking about yukine when he steps in the middle of bishamon's courtyard. his teeth are bared and his eyes are cold and every fiber of his being is screaming hiyori, hiyori, hiyori . anger, the kind that acidifies and rots the insides of his flesh, simmers under his skin. this is an anger he has not experienced in a long, long time.
in his hands, yukine feeds off his fury, though a stronger undercurrent of anxiety vibrates through his blade.
"don't worry," yato says, voice dipped in a furious calm. "we'll get her back."
"of course," yukine replies, and both of them set their sights on bishamon's burning castle.
as expected, she meets them halfway, teeth bared and guns cocked. she spouts something about justice and revenge, brings up yato's gruesome genocide from centuries before. it's nothing yato hasn't heard before, though, and he is so focused on finding hiyori that he lets bishamon's vitriol go in one ear and slip out the next. in his anger-haze, he can't quite understand what in god's name bishamon is trying to say. he's not here for a petty vendetta match. he just wants to make sure hiyori is safe and take her home.
it's this lapse of judgement that causes him to allow bishamon's gunshot to knock yukine out of his hand. yato swears, but before he can take another step, three precise boundary lines trap him in place. even the instinctual pulse of his power is suppressed relentlessly—as expected from the top shinki of a major goddess.
yukine reacts before yato even processes bishamon's next attack, a swinging arc of her giant battle cleaver impossible to dodge. in a trance, yato watches as the blade comes down, and somehow understands that it is already too late to avoid. he braces for impact. the thought that flashes across his mind is: at least yukine will be safe .
and then—
yato sees:
sekki, suspended in mid-air, blade glowing in the light of the shattered boundary lines. bishamon finishes her slash with a snarl, and the shards of sekki's blade splinter and scatter in the gust of wind that follows.
yukine's small back, arms outstretched in instinctive desperation. for a moment, yato thinks that yukine looms impossibly big, the expanse of his back stronger than any guarded wall. bishamon finishes her slash with a snarl, and all at once the impression fades. yukine gasps, wavers, and falls. he is gone by the time yato screams out his name.
yato kneels before bishamon, clutches at his chest. the pain strikes him out of nowhere, and it strikes so fast and so hard that yato nearly passes out. he doesn't even know what hurts and where, only that there is liquid fire shooting through his body, attacking every part of his body and his soul relentlessly, viciously.
above him, bishamon says something scathing, voice bursting with vindication, but yato does not hear her.
instead, he is madly scrabbling for his mental connection to yukine. it is a near-instinctive reach to the back of his mind, and through his sobs he manages to draw the damning conclusion that yukine is deaddeaddead
until yato thinks, sekki,
and sekki responds.
ah , something whispers in the back of yato's mind. the light settles, slowly, like snowfall.
in yato's hands, two swords rest against his palms. the blades glow gray-white in the twilight, and the white ribbons curling off the hilt rest against his forearms, a grounding touch. the pulse of power from sekki's blades tells yato of their renewed strength, their burning devotion.
blessed , the whisper says, again. blessed.
yukine trembles, stunned into silence, and his shock resonates through yato's body. finally, yato finds his breath again, and asks, "yukine, are you ok?"
yukine is a little hesitant to speak, at first. "i thought i was killed for sure," he says, and even though they are still in the midst of battle, bishamon's bloodlust a heavy pressure on the battlefield, yukine laughs bright and clear through his shivering.
"i'm ok," yukine says, practically glowing with vitality. it's a scene not unlike when yukine was first bound to yato, only this time, there is only the feeling of stability, of safety. of love.
it is said that a god and his shinki are two heartbeats beating as one. the overwhelming rush of joy yukine is currently experiencing might be from the mind-blowing realization that he's still alive, or it might be an adrenaline boost from the power a hafuri vessel carries, or it might even be something else entirely, something private and special to yukine only. yato doesn't know, and frankly, he doesn't care.
instead, he feeds off yukine's exhilaration and swells with pride. he says, "you're the first shinki to ever change for me, you know," and he hopes yukine will be able to understand the weight of his gratitude, of his relief. if not now, then in the future. but for now, yato squeezes sekki's hilt tightly and swallows his tears.
yukine's new form sings through the air, a birdsong sharp and dangerous, and the whispers of blessed regalia follow them long after they—including hiyori, safe and sound—leave bishamon's realm for home.
life, as it always does, settles back into its regular rhythms.
there are jobs and there are fights, and other godly beings come and go from yato's life. there is a familiarity in this daily grind of survival, and at times yato even forgets that he's in the twenty-first century. sometimes, as he fills up his days by slaying ayakashi left and right or just going through the motions of a job, it slips his mind that he not only has hiyori and yukine, but also that yukine is his (his!) hafuri and that hiyori has made him a shrine. after centuries of struggling to live to the next day, suddenly, yato has a stable, steady foundation to existence.
one night, yato comes to the sudden realization that he is happy.
the thought shocks him so much that he stumbles to a stop right in the middle of the sidewalk. yukine, in the middle of gesturing wildly about a book he'd recently read, with hiyori's help, collides face first into yato's shoulder.
"ow!" yukine yells, more startled than hurt. "yato, what are you doing?"
"i just realized something," yato says, voice faint. he's rooted to the sidewalk concrete, eyes fixed on some nebulous point in the far, far distance.
yukine falls silent. something about the way yato's voice goes soft and fragile makes the sarcastic remark yukine is about to snap out die before it even reaches his lungs. yukine takes a step back and cautiously looks up at yato, hands shoved in pockets, expectant.
"i'm happy," yato finally says, into the city night. but a city is never silent, and his words are almost swallowed up by the never-ended hum of traffic and construction in the background. yato opens his mouth again, and yukine has to lean in to hear him. "i'm really, really happy."
abruptly, a warm mass barrels into him, knocking the wind out of his lungs. it takes a moment for yato's mind to kick itself awake, but then he registers the pressure against his stomach and his sides and his back.
a glance downward, and yato cannot stop his laughter from escaping. yukine has wrapped his arms around yato in a hug, and they tighten in response to yato's joy.
just as quickly as he'd rushed to embrace yato, yukine jumps back, as if embarrassed to have been caught showing any affectionate emotion at all.
"you better be," yukine scowls. but his eyes are bright and his cheeks are flushed and there's a slight tremor to his voice. yato can tell he's trying not to grin. "with all the work hiyori and i put in for you, you better be happy. as your hafuri, i'm gonna be the best damn thing to ever happen to you!"
he says the last line with a shout, thumping his fist against his chest, which is puffed up in pride. suddenly, yato is overcome by a rush of exhilaration. there is something stirring in his heart that he can't quite name, but it is buoyant and overwhelming in its entirety. yato looks at the conviction drawn on yukine's face, the pride glowing in his eyes and the promise hidden underneath his voice, and wonders if this is what it means to be alive.
yukine does not quite know what to make of yato's silence, but just as he starts to shift uncomfortably, the reality of the words he'd just said catching up to him, yato attacks.
"hey! let me go," yukine yells as yato crushes him in a bear hug. "yato, yato can you hear me? god, are you crying? ew, ew, ew, don't get your snot all over me!"
yato's shinki always have the tragic habit of quitting on him. and like a coward, he lets them go.
but this time, yukine stays. he stays through blight and battle. he follows yato to the lip of the underworld and nearly sacrifices it all to bring yato home. most of all, he gives yato the greatest gift a shinki can give, and asks of yato nothing more than a place to call home.
yukine has done his job, and he continues it spectacularly. it shows in the confidence of his spellwork, the sharp cut of his twin blades, the pride in the little plot of heavenly land yato has claimed as his.
from a different perspective, this is simply the duty a shinki has toward his master. the older gods barely spare a glance toward yukine's efforts. hafuri vessel is the most they think to comment, before sneering at yato's pathetic shrine and disgraceful past. who hasn't seen more glorious holy land, more virtuous gods?
but forget duty, forget laws, forget the petty back-and-forths of authority and hierarchy so entrenched in godly matters.
for yato, who came from nothing and promised nothing and had nothing to offer to the shinki that came his way—this is a debt that can never be repaid.
a/n: aaaaaand that's that! first fic of the new year, done :)
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